Honor Magic Vs may cause confusion on the foldable market. It’s a great smartphone, but the price still hurts [TEST]

So far, Samsung and its company were the undisputed king on the foldable smartphone market Galaxy Z Fold. There is also Huawei with its own Mate X, the problem is that the lack of Google services works to the detriment of this device. Some time ago, however, another manufacturer entered the “combination” scene, which could potentially become a worthy rival for the South Korean giant.

Of course, we are talking about the Honor brand, which until recently was an integral part of the above-mentioned Huawei, and today it operates independently of the Chinese giant. At the end of August, the smartphone finally arrived in Poland Honor Magic Vs, which made its international debut last year.

Over the last month, I had the opportunity to test this device and get to know its strengths, but also slightly weaknesses. Is it worth taking an interest in it? I decided to check it out.

Honor Magic Vs photo: DM

A PLUS: This is what a foldable folder should consist of

Honor Magic Vs can definitely be enjoyed. The quite compact shape of the smartphone is impressive, of course taking into account the fact that we are talking about a foldable case. The device weighs 261 grams, and the thickness of its casing is 13mm. It is therefore slightly lighter and slimmer than Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4*. (by 2 grams and 3 mm, respectively) However, this is not the only advantage of the Chinese device over its rival from South Korea – at least in terms of design.

Honor Magic Vs photo: DM

Honor’s engineers managed to liquidate it one of the biggest disadvantages foldable smartphones. After folding both parts of the screen fit almost perfectly to each other – Therefore, there are no gaps typical for this type of devices, so the thickness of the casing is the same everywhere. More figuratively, Magic Vs folds like a book, not like a tent.

Honor Magic Vs photo: DM

A PLUS: An excellent screen, or rather screens

Honor Magic Vs is equipped with main OLED screen about 7.9 inch diagonal and resolution 2272 x 198. As befits an organic OLED panel, the display looks great, providing deep blacks, infinite contrast and excellent color reproduction.

Honor Magic Vs photo: DM

However, this screen has one drawback. His maximum brightness is only 800 nits. For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 up to 1200 nits of brightness. It is also surprising that the manufacturer decided to use a maximum screen refresh rate of 90 Hz, although 120 Hz is becoming a standard today.

If I were to compare the main screen of the Honor Magic Vs with this one, what does Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 offer, then the winner of this fight would, of course, be the Koreans’ smartphone, although we are not talking about some gigantic advantage here.

Honor Magic Vs photo: DM

Honor, however, beats Samsung in terms of external display. Magic Vs has an external screen OLED with a diagonal of 6.45 inches and resolution 2560 on 1080 pixels. It offers a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz and a brightness of up to 1200 nits. Most importantly, it has standard smartphone proportions – without the strange narrowing of the frames that appeared in the competition.

Honor Magic Vs photo: DM

MINUS: The bend of the screen is still very visible

Unfortunately – just like its market rivals – Honor is also struggling with another problem typical of foldables. When the smartphone is unfolded, the bend (the so-called fold) between the halves of the main screen is still quite visible, and you can clearly feel it under your fingers.

However, from my experience, this is the aspect I pay attention to during the first 2-3 days of testing. Later I stop thinking about it, which doesn’t mean that the problem magically disappears () disappears. So far, no one has managed to eliminate the bend and it seems that another technological leap would be needed to finally solve this issue.

Honor Magic Vs photo: DM

PLUS: Top performance (despite last year’s processor)

The tested smartphone has a system Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. This is (like the smartphone itself) last year’s processor, but it still provides top performance. Everything works quickly and smoothly, and Magic Vs switches between the internal and external screens very smoothly.

So we can, for example, start watching a movie on Netflix or YouTube on the main screen, then fold the smartphone, and the displayed content will immediately be transferred to the external screen – without any cropping. This applies to almost all applications available on the device.

We also have graphics at our disposal Adreno 730 (it will easily handle most mobile games) and 8 or 12 GB RAM, as well as 256 or 512 GB of data memory. The smartphone runs on Android 13 with a very friendly MagicOS 7.1 overlay and access to Google services.

Honor Magic Vs photo: DM

MINUS: No wireless charging

Honor Magic Vs has a large capacity battery 5000 mAh (in the case of Galaxy Z Fold 4 it is 4400 mAh), co translates into a whole day of work on one charge – with average load. During testing, the SoT coefficient fluctuated around 5-6 hours.

We are also pleased that the tested smartphone supports it fast charging with force to 66W (it’s just a pity that there is no appropriate charger in the box with the device). A negative surprise, however, is the lack of wireless charging, which should be standard in a smartphone of this class.

Honor Magic Vs photo: DM

PLUS: The camera does its job

The tested smartphone was equipped with a basic camera with three lenses:

• 55 MP wide angle (f/1.9);
• 50 MP ultra-wide angle (f/2.0) with autofocus;
• 8 MP telephoto lens (f/2.4) with 3x optical zoom and optical stabilization;

This is a very solid configuration, and it is difficult to have any reservations about the quality of the photos. The frames are rich in details and the colors are natural. If I were to compare the Magic Vs camera with the already mentioned Galaxy Z Fold 4, in the case of photos taken during the day, including portraits, I would bet on a draw.

However, night shots are a significant advantage of the Samsung smartphone – but this is hardly surprising, because the Koreans have been the absolute champions of the night mode in mobile devices for years.

Honor Magic Vs photo: DM

MINUS: The price is asking for a reduction

Honor Magic came to Poland in the 12/256 GB version and is currently available (only in Orange) priced at PLN 7,499. So it is very expensive, even if we take into account the fact that the prices of foldable smartphones are almost completely disconnected from any realities.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 in the same configuration in the official Samsung store it costs even more, because until PLN 8,399although it is worth mentioning that in some online stores you can buy it even more than PLN 1,000 cheaper.

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